And a Lie
by R Amythest
Summary: Laura's turn in a simple icebreaker game. Beyond the game, things are less simple. "He who cannot lie does not know what the truth is" - Nietzsche


With thanks to in rain for continued betaing support and Improvisation for a devout-eyed look-over. I love feedback, even if it's just something simple like "I read it."

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><p><em>I'm so bad at this game. No, I've never played it before.<em>

_I'm very sure. I have no practice at lying, you know. The Goddess ordained it, so I have been honest for a very long time. Oh, I know that this game is different, of course. It's all right. I'll play._

_Umm... well, Aran isn't here, that's good. He knows too much about me. It wouldn't be fair._

_Hmm... all right, I have my three statements._

_One..._

For an old abbey and orphanage in the backwater countryside of Daein, we were not cold or joyless. The bountiful forest supplied us with enough wood to keep us warm over the winters, and the abbot would often give to us from his own bowl when there was not enough. On the last day of each week we would gather around the old melodeon with others from the village. The abbot would strike the notes just like he did a thousand times before while Sister Helga led our chorus. And afterward we were sent into the crowd with old hats and pans, asking if they would spare a coin for the Goddess? (For us?)

In our congregation, there were those who the abbot excused from giving to the church. We watched them carefully as the abbot told us that there were those in the world even poorer than them. We should be thankful. We had much where others had none.

The Goddess blessed us with a place that could provide for us and we thanked Her daily. Sometimes we prayed for toys too but if the abbot saw it he would tell us again about how very hard they tried to see us fed. Kelen might have stood it and tried to wish himself a toy soldier anyway – She never granted it to him or any of us if he had. I did not want to be ungrateful. I tried not to wish for the other things, although it was very hard.

So that's why, when the kittens came, everyone begged the abbot to let us play with them.

A month before the first snow of winter, Melisande came running back with her arms full of muddy lumps of fur. We crowded around as she told the abbot how she found them mewling next to their dead mother, a skinny queen with rot in her neck. The abbot listened patiently. From the house of the Goddess, he did not exile them into the cold, although we all knew we had no room for kittens in the winter.

He tried to tell us not to play with them, but he was too gentle to convince us of that. They were so adorable and soft and warm, had little claws and teeth but it didn't hurt. Finally, he said we could, but just for one day. We played with them all day, though they didn't want to play with us by the end. We didn't know why they had to go that night. I guessed that he would try to find a family to take them. The abbot held out an old pail and one by one we put the kittens in. One, two, three, four, five.

There's one more, he said. Is someone hiding one?

We all looked innocent, because Aran is a much better liar than me.

At night Aran crept over to my blanket and woke me up. He asked me if I could keep a secret and I said of course, so he took out a lumpy folded handkerchief. I wanted to ask where he found the handkerchief and tell him that if he took it from the abbot he should give it back and I wouldn't tell, but he unfolded it and there was the sixth kitten, the white and black patched one.

_You_ hid the kitten? I whispered, because I didn't know yet that Aran could break rules. Goddess forgive...

He frowned at me and told me that I shouldn't sound like that, because did I know what the abbot did with them? They had kittens before, three years ago when I couldn't remember, he told me, and when he had to get up to pee he saw the abbot drowning them in a bucket.

The abbot wouldn't do that, I said. Aran frowned at me again because he saw it with his own eyes and I didn't believe him.

He did, he said. Laura, I'm telling you because I'm rotten at healing and...

Then I noticed that his kitten had not moved, and I said, Oh, oh no.

Aran is gentle, he is, but he didn't know a thing about animals and he tied the cloth too tight when he tried to hide it. I prayed a little for the kitten and for forgiveness before Aran hid it underneath the charred logs in the fireplace saying we couldn't bury it because we couldn't get caught. But the Goddess saw that the next week was warm, and when the smell was too much – I couldn't help but look at Aran every time just to see if he would tell – the abbot found us out. The abbot didn't raise his voice. He hardly ever did, since he'd told us to be true to ourselves, though some said afterward that it was because he liked me best.

Aran raised his voice. He said he was doing what was right, trying to save a kitten. The abbot firmly told him to sit and asked us what it was that we really had done? He drowned them, you see, because that was the best he could give them. Be grateful to the Goddess: She made us human, and he looked after us first.

... _we couldn't keep a cat at the orphanage, but Aran once tried to hide a kitten! Oh, he was found out and we couldn't keep it. That was too bad – it was very cute while we could play with it._

_Two..._

It was just a few weeks ago, sometime on our march to the Ribahn. I had never been in Begnion before. I told Aran while we were sweeping through a plain that it wasn't as different from Daein as I expected, but I still felt far from home. He nodded like he listened to me, but I knew he had lived in Begnion so it was nothing new to him. He even had a bit of a Begnion sharpness to his _ee_'s when he spoke quickly to me alone.

Does your family live here? I asked him.

We lived east of here, he said, and I'm not sure if I can find them anymore. He explained to me that we were marching through the territory of Duke Telgam, while his family had taken an eastern trade route from Sienne up to Nevassa. Their trade patterns had all but collapsed three years ago in the Crimean War, and when they struggled, he felt that the path of least resistance was to join the military, since without even a skill for letters and numbers he was no good to the guild. That was how he was tossed from one minor station to another, and finally back to Daein. He thought it was a strange fate to be stationed at Glaive, so close to our old church.

I told him, Poverty may befall the mortal, but the Goddess always sees Her plans through. She brought us together again, blessed be.

He let me take his hand like we were children again. He always walked too fast for me, but in his armor his pace was just right. He said, They didn't treat you badly after I left, did they?

He meant some of the others, not the abbot or the others who cared for us. I often had the abbot's favor for how well I learned and how steadfastly I prayed. With the Goddess's blessing, I was unharmed by those who had less. Sometimes it was said that I was only girl still pure enough to be one of Her closest. I told him this, and I asked him if he still remembered the orphanage.

He said he did, but didn't talk about it. Instead he said, I don't know about the Goddess, but I'm glad I found you.

I'm glad I found you too, I said happily, though it's too bad that you've lost touch with your lovely family.

He mumbled that he wouldn't call them lovely. I frowned and asked him why.

He said, Hard to say. I probably expected too much.

It was better, I said. Wasn't it? Aran only shrugged. He mumbled something about homes that I didn't catch and he wouldn't repeat. All along I remembered how sad I was when he left. I was friends with a few others, but not like I was friends with him, and one year the fever and chills took most of them away too. That was something he didn't have to watch. As I prayed for each one, I wished I could have held his hands together between mine to make him pray too.

The Goddess is fair. He must have been happier once he left. After all, he lived our dream from then on.

... _I've never been in Begnion before! Aran has, of course – he's traveled all across it. It's my first time. I'm so excited. If only we weren't here to fight... Mm, but we can't help that._

_Three..._

I'm happy for you, Aran.

I'm not leaving you lonely, am I, Laura?

Of course not. The Goddess will always be there for me.

We couldn't expect that we would ever leave with a family, but we hoped that it might happen, even though families hardly ever came. When the merchant family visited, we were all our most charming.

Aran was always more charming. Maybe that's why he couldn't reach the Goddess like us.

Sometimes, I remember when we were not yet friends. He asked me to read Her scriptures after class each day, slowly and carefully over and over until he could read them too. While we did that, he did well in Brother Treck's classes, until he taught us to write. We tried the same thing, practicing every day, but he never got much better. He took a month of the brother's stern ruler before in tears he told me that he could memorize all Her scriptures by heart but now things were impossible.

Brother Treck didn't believe him when he told him he just couldn't. I did. I wrote with him every day. It took a week for him to write his name, and now and then he still switched the _r_ and the _n_.

I'm sure the Goddess has Her plans for you, I told him.

He pressed his swollen knuckles against his lips and said, The abbot thinks so too. I don't have to write anymore.

... Can we still be friends?

Of course.

No one knew the First Book of Ashera as well as him, but he never learned any of the others. Brother Treck always said that no one could be close to Ashera without knowing Her word – and if he failed at something so simple, he couldn't possibly do something like communing with Her. Maybe he was right, because after Aran no longer had classes with us, he said he no longer felt Her presence in his life. I was frightened for him always, and I made sure to read and write very well so that She would stay with me. When I prayed to Her I made him pray too, but it was easy to see that She was hardly ever on his mind.

When the visiting family chose Aran, the Goddess helped me to understand. He wouldn't need Her aid. She knew he would get by.

They gave him until sundown to pack but it didn't take that long. Within a mark he had all his things in the pack his new mother gave him. Then he was sitting next to me instead of spending time with them. I'll visit, he said.

You're going to come all the way across mountains and deserts from Begnion? I said. He frowned and said he didn't know it was that far away. I told him there were mountains reaching deep into the sky hiding terrible beastmen, and marshes and swamps that suck you in and drown you, and deserts that dry you up like a raisin – it says so in the Second Book, where Ashera travels the lands. But you'll be okay, you've always been good at everything, it will just take a very long time. So I might be as old and wrinkly as Sister Helga.

He didn't know what to say to that.

It's all right, I said. The Goddess will love me. I'll have Her. You shouldn't keep your parents waiting, Aran. That's very rude.

He listened to me. He didn't want to, maybe. Aran and his family both left and...

... _on the day Aran was adopted, I thanked the Goddess for giving him a wonderful family and I was very happy for him. I prayed for their safe journey back to Begnion, and the Goddess smiled upon them. He is alive, after all, even though the trip is very hard._

_Oh, yes, very hard. Filled with deserts and mountains and swamps, dangerous creatures and drowning and drying. It was a trial even to the Goddess..._

... _You think that's the lie? Oh, I did say I was no good. You've caught me!_

_Ha ha ha ha._


End file.
